Women's Tennis

Women's Tennis Rebounds With Win Over Fullerton

Feb 09, 2002

Feb. 9, 2002

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -
The Santa Clara University women's tennis team rebounded from its narrow loss to nationally-ranked Nevada yesterday with a convincing 5-2 victory over Cal State Fullerton today at the Santa Clara University Tennis Center.

The Broncos improved to 3-3 on the season, while Cal State Fullerton, 4-3 winners over San Jose State on Friday, dropped to 1-2. Santa Clara returns to action on Saturday, Feb. 16 in a non-conference dual match against the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. That match is scheduled for an 11 a.m. start at the Santa Clara Tennis Center.

"I thought we came out with good intensity and a strong focus today," said Head Coach Aby Ryan. "We were more consistent from top to bottom and, although we made some changes at a few positions in both singles and doubles, fought through most challenges with more determination. This win should give us more confidence as we progress through the season."

The Broncos didn't begin the match as hoped, dropping two of the three doubles matches and losing the opening point to the Titans. Ryan made several changes in the doubles lineups, placing the duo of Pati Ruiz and Jenny Siegel at the number three position and switching the top two teams in the lineup. Interestingly, Ruiz and Siegel came out on top, winning the only doubles match for Santa Clara with an 8-6 decision over Fullerton's Adriana Hockicko and Jessica Martin.

"We experimented to a certain extent at the top two doubles positions and that came back to bite us a little when we lost the doubles point," said Ryan. "We switched the top two positions and put Nicole (McCord) and Mariko (Kawakami) at number one and they lost 8-3. We might look at either going back to what we were doing or making some other changes in lineup in order to give ourselves the best chance to start a match with momentum and win the critical doubles point."

Santa Clara came back to capture five of the six singles matches to earn the 5-2 dual match victory. Ryan pointed out junior Christine Limbers' 6-0, 6-4 victory over Fullerton's Ana Maria Iacob as one of the top individual performances in the dual match.

"Christine competed well after losing a tough match yesterday against Nevada," said Ryan. "She started off winning the first set 6-0 then stayed focused, continued to play hard and won the second set 6-4. Often times it's difficult to stay focused after shutting out the opponent in the first set, but Christine hung in there and played a complete match."